River Tay

I was surprised to discover that the River Tay, in terms of volume of discharge, contains more fresh water than any other river in the United Kingdom. It shouldn’t have come as a shock as it has a catchment area of nearly 2,000 square miles, much of it mountainous. Downstream of Perth the river becomes tidal and it was this stretch of the river that we explored on Sunday morning.
The morning dawned damp and overcast. But we were keen to get on the water when we met in the small village of Newburgh, which is on the south shore of the River Tay. The tide had just turned and the plan was to use the ebb tide to carry us in the direction of Dundee and the famous bridges.
It was a journey of 11 nautical miles, a distance which slipped quickly past but didn’t seem to require too much effort. The tide seemed to be doing most of the work. I was surprised to see a number of seals. One in particular seemed to be enjoying his morning break, feeding on rather a large fish and in no hurry to move out of our way.
Coming from Jersey, I enjoyed paddling past relatively long stretches of wooded shoreline. An environment which is relatively rare on the island. The sight of deer running through the fields or walking along the shore was an added bonus.
The dominant feature of the paddle though was the Tay Railway Bridge. The original bridge was opened to railway traffic on the 1st June 1878. On the evening of the 28th December 1879 a violent gale was blowing. At 7.13 pm a train headed across the bridge but disappeared in the darkness. The exact number of people who died isn’t known but thought to be 74 or 75.
The events of that evening were described in the poem by Willaim McGonagall, “The Tay Bridge Disaster.” I remembering studying it for English A Level at school. So bad that it was shown to us as an example of how not to write poetry.
Paddling under the new bridge and seeing the remains of the old bridge, one couldn’t help but reflect on the events of that night, 150 years ago. It was a fitting place to complete our Sunday paddle on the River Tay. Thanks once again to the enthusiasm and knowledge of Piotr, the owner of Outdoor Explore.

Leaving from the slup at the western of the village of Newburgh. It was just after high water so we were able to use the ebb tide flowing out of the Firth of Tay.Just downstream was the Bear and Staff. Carved into the hillside in 1980, it was a rather interesting feature.The coastline isn’t spectacular but it was enjoyable and contained a number of surprises. We saw a number of deer either along the beach or running across the fields.Along the south shore there were a number of ruined cottages, which may have been left over from the fishing industry.As we approached the Tay Bridges we could see the oil rigs, which are being worked on in Dundee.There were two shipwrecks on this section of the River Tay, one either side of the railway bridge. The one to the east of the bridge was probably used in helping to salvage items after the disaster on the bridge in 1879.Nicky approaching the Tay Railway bridge from the east. With a span of 2.75 miles it is an impressive structure.Looking along the gap between the remains of the old railway bridge and the new one. The term new is used loosely, as it opened in 1887.This looked like a 1970’s or early 80’s general purpose fibreglass kayak. Wedged on a steep hillside its origins were clearly a mystery.

Share this:

Related

About Sea Paddler

The Sea Paddler website has been in existence in various forms since 1996. Initially as a site which provide a large amount of information about general sea kayaking. From about 2008 it functioned as a blog and now the aim is to provide a mixture of the two.
The focus was on sea kayaking in Jersey but has expanded into other geographical areas and different activities.

Recent Posts

Previous Posts

Categories

Error: Access Token is not valid or has expired. Feed will not update. This error message is only visible to WordPress admins

There's an issue with the Instagram Access Token that you are using. Please obtain a new Access Token on the plugin's Settings page.If you continue to have an issue with your Access Token then please see this FAQ for more information.